ABSTRACT
Maria Engström analyzes recent Russian cultural practices, especially visual arts, to explore how Russian civilizationism is connected to the ideas of common European Christianity and European civilization understood as classical heritage. “Classical heritage” in this context refers to the resurgent interest in the Soviet legacy as a form of neoclassicism and hence “antiquity,” and to the prominent display of classical European art in Russian art exhibitions as well as in the recent exchange of art collections between Russia and Western Europe. This testifies to a widespread consumption of classical European art in today’s Russia, which co-exists with the idea of Russia as the defender of European Christian civilization popular among Russian politicians and public intellectuals. Even geopolitical events such as Russian actions in Palmyra against the Islamic State, and Russia’s official support of the Assad regime, were interpreted in Russia within the narrative of Russia defending “the Russo-European civilization.” Likewise, the dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and Catholic Church underlines the image of Russia as true Europe. In the second part of the chapter Engström contextualizes the Russian preoccupation with classical heritage by evoking Timur Novikov’s 1990s project of “new Russian classicism,” which sets an artistic precedent for the current trends.
